it depends on who and what. >> we look forward to many more years of "the new york times," and we appreciate the time you've taken to speak with us. thank you very much, jill. >> thank you, john. is rachelle oldmixon takes a test to find out what's in her dna. kyle hill is an engineer. tonight he's got the innovation that will light up las vegas, a unique plant that stores light during the kay, to light up the

night. i'm phil torres, i'm an entomologist. but tonight, i've got the story that will have you shaking your heads. why bugs should be a part of your next meal. that's the story, now let's do some science. are ♪ ♪ ♪ >> welcome to "techknow". i'm phil torres and today i'm here with kyle, lindsay and rachelle. we're going to start with a story of how we can use our dna in medicine. rachelle, what do you have? >> i submitted my dna for a

company called 23andme. let's find out. >> simple test, nothing complicated. the first thing i have to do is take the tune and i get to fill it with slief hav splief saliva. you can watch me spit. that's done. i joined 23 million people who sent their saliva to 23andme. to conduct a personal dna test. they begin with our 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent, filled with you're dna. dna is a double helix with base pairs of nucleotides. as paired with cs. >> katy: , gss.over and over.

so that a sequencing machine has enough material to determine the exact order of those as ts gs and cs. >> that's the instruction manual for what makes you you, and me me, and other people themselves. when we sequence dna, we are determining the order of those bases then you match them up to a reference. you match up to where you differ from the reference sequence. and those changes are what are used to predict what might go wrong with you. 23andme is a conglomeration of: know more about your health. go to 23andme and order your dna

kit for only $99 today. >> with the fine print, "not a substitute for professional medical advice," in november of twean. 2003. 2013. >> the underlying argument is to regulated medical device you have to show us it's safe and effective. you haven't done that. some people think that's great, it's my dna, i should be able to get it, i shouldn't be able to hire a doctor or genetic counselor. but to explain what its strengths and weaknesses are. >> i got my results sent to me

before the fda ban. >> my health risks just loaded. the first one would give any woman reason to pause. the number one thing that i have the most elevated risk for is breast cancer. when the fda ordered 23andme to stop offering medical advice, they also pulled the plug on some of my results. i'm here with dr. human alie, the one that alarmed me the most is how breast cancer is elevated more than anything else. what do you mean by genetic variants? >> a change in the single position of the dna variants. at 24.4%, when the norm is 13.5. but professor alie says risk

isn't just based on genetics. >> overall history is more important than the eight variants. because we know it's not just the eight genes that are associated with breast cancer. 50 perhaps 100. >> no one on my family or the other side has been diagnosed with breast cancer. >> right, then i would be unworried about the 23% above the general risk or average risk. >> it is up to debate how much this 23andme genome test is going to change gene sequencing. aa little optimistic. the final cost was over $3 billion but today you can have your entire genome sequenced for $5,000 and have it analyzed at a lab a lot like this one. the results of which are far more detailed than what i got from tweem. 23andme.

professor mike schneider runs his lab at stanford in part around himself. >> i think we've done over four years over 60 samples. >> schneider tests himself at almost owe saysive intervals. >> this t is a change i have in a particular gene that makes me susceptible to a disease called aplastic anemia. >> but the results shocked him. >> i was found to have a risk for adult on set diabetes. five weeks later i went to my regular doctor and had all these tests done again and sure enough my glucose level went even higher to the point write was classified as diabetic. i changed my whole lifestyle. >> lower cost dna sequencing. >> what implications does that have for medicine? >> really makes it accessible for everyone. it will also mean it will move

to preventive medicine. hopefully predict diseases better and catch them earlier and avoid them in the first place if you change your lifestyle accordingly. just to give you a feel for this, in the area of cancer this is already having a huge impact. we sequence the dna of cancer patients, makes them predictions about what went wrong with them genetically and predicts drugs based on those are outcomes. >> is this changing the are direction of medicine in the future? >> if you can see what's going to go wrong you can keep an eye out for it but you have to use this information responsibly. >> what i do have a family history for is colon cancer. >> 23andme estimates average risk to be 4%. your risk is about 5. if you want to know what does it really mean for you, are i'm not

sure any medical just a secondisjust aaregeneti genetict could tell you. >> so it seems like i have a rather dull profile as far as genetics is concerned. >> in this case, i would say dull is a good thing. >> i would agree. >> really interesting findings. >> they are. >> it's really interesting that my family that is so proud of being italian is quite probably very barely italian. at most i'm 7% italian making my grandmother less than half italian. >> i found i'm genetically linked with the chef mario batali.

>> we'll test you in the kitchen in a while. i think this area of genetics is in the future. >> the future is going there. this is just the first wave. maybe the fda recognizes that they are not getting i qui right, they don't have all the pieces together but there's going toe more companies like this in the future. information is information. this is e age of big data. this is gs going to happen and we're just at the forefront of it. >> all right next up kyle i heard you went to vegas? >> phil, what if i told you you could gate solar power at night? >> i'm in. >> we'll check it out next. >> we want to hear what you think about these stories, join the conversation by following us on twitter and at aljazeera.com. extraodinary films from the world's top documetary directors. >> it's the world's most powerful financial institution.

>> i think we're mysterious to people. >> what really goes on behind closed doors? >> the fed is kind of this black box. >> it's your money... >> somebody screwed up. >> ... or is it? >> i worked to save that money and now i get nothing. >> inside the fed. on al jazeera america.

the stream is uniquely interactive television. we depend on you, >> you are one of the voices of this show. >> so join the conversation and make it your own. >> the stream. on al jazeera america and join the conversation online @ajamstream. al jazeera america. we open up your world. >> here on america tonight, an opportunity for all of america to be heard. >> our shows explore the issues that shape our lives.

>> new questions are raised about the american intervention. >> from unexpected viewpoints to live changing innovations, dollars and cents to powerful storytelling. >> we are at a tipping point in america's history! >> al jazeera america. there's more to it. ♪ ♪ >> we are back here at "techknow" and kyle, what story do you have? >> so i went all the way out to nevada to check out a solar field at night. i'm surrounded 600 feet in the air by mirrors, harnessing solar energy in a field of salt. check it out. why the field of solar energy is

going to be so bright. with its glitz, glamor and endless gambling, las vegas sits at the edge of unending riches and unbounding energy. new energy source, thanks to the sun. for over 100 years, tufty nevada towns like tonopah rode a roller coaster from boom to bust. it had one of the richest silver strikes in th west but eventuale fields went dry and tonopah turned into a ghost town. put today, nevada and las vegas are staking their energy dollars on this little town.

land and sunshine, the perfect combination of solar reserve, to set up the first of its kind of solar energy storage plant. >> if only, we could store solar energy. hello, we can do that now. >> before crescent dunes, through using molten salt as a storage yeem, concentrated solar par on a commercial scale. with a $1 billion loan from the u.s. department of energy, let's start at the top. specifically, a 600 foot tal tower. here at solarreserve's, crescent dunes project, they are harnes

harnessing energy from the sun. >> it's kind of like taking a giant mag if i fieg glass like you -- magnifying glass like you did as a kid. >> more involved than my childhood experiments. >> these move just a little bit. every few minutes, they move just a little bit, just to make sure we are pointing the sun's beam to the top of the tower. >> at the heart of this new tmg is mold -- technology is molt everyone salt. >> that louse us to hold that molten amount of energy. first of its kind and size in the world.

>> here's how it works. more than 10,000 tracking mirrors called helio stats will concentrate sunlight onto a large heat exchanger called a receiver. where the energy is stored. when ples electricity is requir, day or knight, generating steam, after steam is used to drive the turbine it's condensed back to water and the holding tank. the result, a 100% renewable power plant, with an infinite power source. >> that's enough to power 70,000 homes here in nevada. >> the plant is scheduled to open this year, and is about 85% complete. with over 2,000 helio stats left

to assemble and install, they install 60 heliostats a day, emily deck works at assembling the then-ton mirrors. -- three-ton mirrors. >> run me through what you do to get this project off the ground. >> right now, i'm working with the end process, where we are securing the screws, the deadlock. >> i think a largest part of our duties will be washing the mirrors. but in addition to that, they have computers that run the elevation and the azimuth

control. >> you are like the doctor for 10,000 patients? >> 10,347. >> from our perspective this and i think the industry will agree that this technology really kind of leap frogs the u.s. into the leadership role in technology. >> so when we were walking around outside, we saw the history of what started this town. we saw giant mining equipment and now we see history being made on the other side of town, right? >> that's really what our history is about. and now we're moving into that next phase and we're just mining another natural resource, which is the sun. >> now, i'm always amaze ed that somebody even thought -- amazed that somebody even thought of this in the first place. >> right, harnessing this later

on when the sun's out. if this trend continues around the world like the company has plans to do, if you have enough space we certainly have enough deserts in the world. and the thing that i really enjoy about this story is using what we already have to solve our problems. >> that is really great stuff, really fascinating. and up next, guys, i'm going to eat some bugs. both my parents are journalists. my grandfathers are journalists. it's just something that's in the blood. there are so many stories out there that need to be told. we want to go in to the trenches, we want to go in the corners that are less looked at. everyone at al jazeera america is dedicated to tell the story the best way that it can be told. >> al jazeera america is a straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. >> we believe in digging deep. >> its unbiased, fact-based, in-depth journalism. >> you give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point. >> i'm on the ground every day finding stories that matter to you. >> in new orleans... >> seattle bureau... >> washington...

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♪ ♪ >> welcome back to "techknow". i'm phil torres here with kyle, lindsay and rachelle. now, guys are, take a look at this. anybody hungry? >> can't say that i am. >> i'm here to tell you about what i see as the future of protein. it sees insects as food. let's take a look. ♪ >> there's no place quite like down south in louisiana for a great time and even greater food. but little did i know, my first trip to the mardi gras capital of the world would have me eating much more than a shrimp po boy. >> one area called bug apetite,

we have bugs for appetizer. >> i'm at the audubon insectarium. >> what is entomophogy? >> that is insect eating. >> just as insects come in a variety of forms, so can entomophogy. you can eat the larva, the pupae or the adult. >> you are about to fry a drag on fly. >> about a dozen drag on flies. >> before you say yuck, consider this. >> it's great! >> 2 billion people are already eating insects as part of their regular diet throughout asia, south america and africa and there's a very good reason why.

>> what would you say stand up the most about eating insects nutritionally? >> most have high levels of nitrogen iron phosphorous and calcium. you have a lot of other abundant elements that our bodies can use. >> the united nations released a report arguing for more insect farming and more bugs in everyone's diets. >> at the moment, a lot of entomophogists are in to what is into this new food product. >> especially crickets are actually the protein hope of the future and a sustainable one, at that. >> they are incredibly efficient as well. you can take ten pounds of grain and feed a cow. you'll get about one pound of beef back for your work.

while at the sairm poundage. i get more back. >> 9 billion people by 2050, demand for meat products is expected to double. >> there is a visual and psychological aspect to it. you have to try to overcome eating a cricket. >> what do you think is going to be motivate for americans to get behind this cricket movement? >> it's going to be a lot like sushi, culinary experience, as far as trying to put this into the hands of the culinary chefs that people look up to. >> joe gets his insects from an insect farm in louisiana. >> what am i listening to here? >> they are rubbing the wings

together. a big misconception is that it comes from moving their legs together but it is not, it's the wings. >> producing 5 million crickets a week. humans like to school the cricket rat five weeks, when the wings are not completely formed yet. >> when you look at crickets, you don't necessarily think food. but 100 grams of crickets have 13 grams of protein and only 100 calories. think of it as a cricket protein bar. >> joe hopes to take the culinary world by notice. using crickets in a new way. >> when we are moving to the next level, the flour. >> grinding literally thousands of them into cricket flour.

>> so here we have what we call semifine grade. so you can still see some of the legs, if you see closely you see a head or two. this cricket flour you can use this into breads and brownie at and literally anything you want. it providers the health benefits, the sustainability aspect of it, without triggering, am i eating a bug? what's going on? no, you're eating a brownie. >> our flower turns intoing a chocolate chip contradict pancake. so the moment of truth, a chocolate chip pancake. cheers. this is good. this is really good. >> so we just watched you eat

bugs. a lot of them. >> i had five drag on flies that day and they were all really tasty. i think as you guys can see, the data is there to support that we should be eating these things. it's a matter of kind of convincing the public what do you guys think, would you try them? >> i would assume that probably all of us eats a little bit of bugs on a regular basis and i look at this and think as the population of the world continues to increase, could this help solve in the future some world food problems? >> absolutely. we eat bugs. every day. we just don't quite know it. the fda does set limits on how many insect parts can be in your food and over the course of your lifetime you probably eat a pound or two of it. but like you ved lindsay, it's about -- said lindsay, it's about solving a public problem here. >> let's god a cricket tacos. what do you think? >> i'm onto it.

>> dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes at aljazeera.com/"techknow". follow our expert contributors or twitter, facebook, google plus and more. sylla >> hello. welcome to al jazeera america. i'm jonathan betz in new york. >> the syrian government agrees to ease the suffering in one of cities that that's been bombing. there's little other progress at the peace talks. >> demonstrators in the ukraine take over another government building as protests spread across the country. >> investigators say the gunman in the maryland mall shooting has no